Quintus Sextius the Elder ' onMouseout='HidePop("70022")' href="/topics/Floruit">fl.

Floruit

Floruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...

 c. 50 BC) was a Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 philosopher, whose philosophy combined Pythagoreanism

Pythagoreanism

Pythagoreanism was the system of esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were considerably influenced by mathematics. Pythagoreanism originated in the 5th century BCE and greatly influenced Platonism...

 with Stoicism

Stoicism

Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.Stoics were concerned...

. His praises were frequently celebrated by Seneca

Seneca the Younger

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...

.

Life

Sextius founded a school of philosophy combining some features of the Pythagoreans with others of the Stoics; and which was consequently classed sometimes with one, and sometimes with the other of those sects. Seneca

Seneca the Younger

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...

 describes Sextius as a Stoic but mentions that Sextius himself denied it. From the Epistles of Seneca

Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

The Epistulae morales ad Lucilium is a bundle of 124 letters which were written by Seneca the Younger at the end of his life. These letters all start with the phrase "Seneca Lucilio suo salutem" and end with the word "Vale" . In these letters, Seneca gives Lucilius tips on how to become a more...

we learn that Sextius, though born of an illustrious family, had declined the office of Senator

Roman Senate

The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...

 when offered him by Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

. He also subjected himself to a scrupulous self-examination at the close of each day; and he abstained from animal food, though for different reasons than those ascribed to Pythagoras

Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...

:

Sextius believed that man had enough sustenance without resorting to blood, and that a habit of cruelty is formed whenever butchery is practised for pleasure.

Sextius' son succeeded him as head of his school. He may be identical with the writer on pharmacology

Pharmacology

Pharmacology is the branch of medicine and biology concerned with the study of drug action. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function...

, Sextius Niger

Sextius Niger

Sextius Niger was a Roman writer on pharmacology during the reign of Augustus or a little later. He may be identical with the son of the philosopher Quintus Sextius, who continued his philosophical teachings.-Life and work:...

. A Xystus Pythagoricus philosophus is recorded in Jerome

Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...

's version of the Chronicon of Eusebius. He is also mentioned by Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

, and by the elder Pliny

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

. Seneca writes (c. 65 AD) that the school was extinct.

Works

Seneca delighted much in a work of Sextius, the title of which he does not give, but which he praises, as written with great power:

Ye Gods, what strength and spirit one finds in him! This is not the case with all philosophers; there are some men of illustrious name whose writings are sapless. They lay down rules, they argue, and they quibble; they do not infuse spirit simply because they have no spirit. But when you come to read Sextius you will say: "He is alive; he is strong; he is free; he is more than a man; he fills me with a mighty confidence before I close his book." I shall acknowledge to you the state of mind I am in when I read his works: I want to challenge every hazard; I want to cry: "Why keep me waiting, Fortune? Enter the lists! Behold, I am ready for you!"

It has sometimes been suggested that the extant Sentences of Sextus

Sentences of Sextus

The Sentences of Sextus is a Hellenistic Pythagorean text which was also popular among Christians. The earliest mention of the Sentences is in the mid 3rd century by Origen...

were (in their original form) written by Sextius.